Maybe I Need Cats

I'm not sure who decided that canned tuna and pasta were a winning combination. It most certainly is not. Hell, I'm not sure who decided canning tuna was a good idea. It is, in fact, also not. Fresh tuna? Fabulous! Canned tuna? The opposite of fabulous. That being said, I've been hard up for EASY and QUICK dinner ideas for the kids. Jillian refuses to eat almost everything and Juliet eats almost everything. So, with this all swirling in my little pea brain, I decided to dump a teeny tiny can of tuna in a bowl with some plain ziti and some butter. A simple tuna casserole type thing. I mean millions of (fucking weird) people LOVE tuna casserole so my paired down version would be okay for the kids. This is what I thought. I mean knew Jillian would be suspect but I thought Juliet would eat the hell out of it. So it was worth the experiment ... also hello Omega-3's nice to see ya!

Well, Jillian was indeed suspect and with the whining and the whining and ohmygod the whining, pushed my buttons to the point where I threw down a bowl of un-tunaed plain ziti with enough force to create a ziti shower ... Woot! Woot! It is raining ziti! Now, while my crazy level is HIGH, it is not so HIGH that I did not realize that perhaps things would be better if I walked away for a few minutes. So I did. And when I returned Jillian had eaten the plain ziti and Juliet, dear sweet, I will eat anything but ice cream and greek yogurt (what the hell is that all about) Juliet, she had also eaten the ziti, while picking off the tuna. Every. Single. Bit. Then she took the tuna bits and rubbed them all over herself. So now I have a baby who smells like cat food. Let this be a lesson ... a-note-to-self ... don't think you can fool your kids into eating something you know is nasty. It will backfire. Spectacularly.

Girly Food

A certain little girl turned three in these parts and there was some crafty (craFty not craPPy, though there was some of that too) baking going on as a result. Like a cake! A pink cake! A pink cake, shaped like an apple!


I have no idea why she wanted such a cake or how she dreamed it up. But here is my version of an apple shaped cake (pre-frosting). I copied was inspired by the Apple logo and, if I hadn't been up until three in the morning alternating between the cake and dealing with a sick baby, I think I would have remembered to swish the bottom part. She was happy, even without the bottom bit carved all right and proper, so WIN!

We also had some cake pops! And sugar cookies! With regard to the cake pops ... FAIL! I mentioned I had some cake pop problems and knowing that I tried another test round. Because you know, my kids is turning three which is such a big deal that I needed to practice. Ha! Me = Nutjob! Anyway, test round number two? That worked a little better and seemed to have helped with my dripping issue. So, of course, the final "real" batch turned out fucktastic. I ended up with three pseudo Hello Kittys who were really Hello Kitty's demonic sisters. One has a tumor, one is cracked out and one is perpetually scared like something is being rammed up her ... oh wait, there was, a lollipop stick. Anywho, there were many duds which I threw on a plate and referred to as a kitty graveyard.


'Twas only after I spent a day slaving over those motherlovin' cake pops and icing a gazillion cookies, that I realized I had nothing to shove a candle in, and well, you kind of need a candle to blow out on your birthday. So an uber-early morning trip to Starbucks netted us the cupcakes. Though I totally could have made them. And they would have looked just like that.

Socky Sherbet

This weekend, while sprawled out on a couch during a girls' weekend, I finished the Sunday Swing Socks. As soon as they were done, I put them on and went for a walk along the beach hunting for sea glass. It turns out, I am a MUCH better sock knitter than I am sea glass finder ... even after consuming an entire bottle of wine and some Poochi Poochi Sake.


These socks were so unbelievably easy to knit. So easy that I never actually printed out the pattern. I looked at the pattern online and knitted from the iPad for the first round or so and then realized that the spacing was six stitches and eight stitches and that was then end of my need for the pattern. I did goof at one point and switch the eight and the six so one repeat is off, but I am pretending that it never happened and in fact, that last bit of the sentence is going to self-destruct as soon as you click away from this entry. Seriously. It will. Though you shouldn't click back and double check or my secret Sycophant Zombie Army will have to come and assimilate you into the fold.

Anyway, I digress. These socks are easy. Though I suspect that if these were your first socks, you might want to refer to the pattern a little more than me. I didn't alter anything in the pattern, except the cuff/ribbing, which I had started before I determined what pattern these socks were going to be. I'm not sure what the pattern calls for but a simple k1,p1 rib works fine.

Also fine? The yarn. It is ArtYarns and it is lovely. I am a fan of ArtYarns yarns and am bummed to hear (from several unrelated sources) that the woman who is ArtYarns is a bit of a yahoo who is trying to re-brand herself and in doing so is pricing her self out of the market. Well at least for cashmere. Which these socks are not. But still. I don't like the word on the street. Assuming the sock yarn stays affordable, and you are interested, I'd say it is a nice knit. Not splitty. Not knotty. Smooth and flowy and squishy. I'm not sure how it will wear and if the colors will fade (Koigu I'm looking at you ... fader!) as I have only used the ArtYarns cashmere and silk before, but I am hopeful. Really hopeful. I have a skein leftover, as well as a bit left over from each skein that I knit the socks from and am thinking kid socks (though these aren't superwash which could be tricky with the under three crowd).

So, as the great Charlie Sheen would say, these socks? WINNING, Duh!


Yarn: ArtYarns Ultramerino 4, less than two skeins, color 127.
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1)
Pattern: Sunday Swing Socks
Time: 4 weeks!
Care: Hand wash and dry flat in shade.

I Tried

Yesterday, for St. Patrick's Day, I decided to spread my culinary wings and make corned beef in the crock pot. I somehow ended up with a slab o' beef that did not include a spice packet, inconvenient as that is the other ingredient in 99.9% of slow cooker corned beef recipes. The internet told me to use pickling spices, to which I thought, vodka? 'Cause I use that to pickle my liver ... other than that, I have no clue what makes up pickling spices. By this point, both of my kids had decided to climb the walls and/or eat dog food, so I said, "to Hell with it!" quit my research and tossed in some mustard powder, black pepper, white pepper, a truck load (about half a cup) of garlic cloves and water. I cranked that baby up to high and hoped for the best. Which it turns out, was a good way to go as severalhours later the corned beef was quite tasty. I took my tasty corned beef, put it on some bread with the garlic and coleslaw and made a Reuben sandwich. Because you know, nothing says Happy St. Patrick's Day like a Reuben.

Thank You Sr. Sheen

I've had this big plan, or rather, BIG PLAN to make cake pops for Jillian's upcoming birthday. WINNING! I've even dropped some murmurings about fancy cake pops. BI-WINNING! It is all very exciting. Or rather was. You see, I've had this plan for awhile and was quite bummed when Starbucks started carrying cake pops (in hindsight this probably was the universe telling me to get the hell off the cake pop bus - a bad batch of tigerblood must be why I missed this sign). I was bummed because it both took some of the wow factor away from my future unveiling and also raised the bar being that the Starbucks ones are pretty darn good.

So, with that in mind and knowing that my kitchen is perhaps the world's, or at least my town's, most sucktastic kitchen and such sucktasticness usually negatively affects my baking (yah, dozens of loaves of blank tasting pumpkin and zucchini bread I am talking to you), I decided, for probably the first time in my life, to practice. I went out and got all the fixings and dudes, if I had a tail it would have been wagging on hyper drive, I was so psyched. My kitchen was where it was at and beat anything 99% of the world was doing. I baked the cake and it tasted good. No, GOOOOOOOD. WINNING, duh! Then after it cooled I made the cake ball mixture and it was, well okay. The frosting was meh and took away from the greatness of the cake. But I could use different frosting for the final product so no worries. Tail? Still wagging happily. Once all was mixed, it was ball making time and that wasn't too bad either. My balls were not perfectly round, but they were okay. I tried a few other shapes and they were less okay than my balls (yes, that makes me laugh), but not too totally terrible. Next was stick insertion and even that went well. The last step, the most crucial step, the dipping. The dipping, it is where things went ... downhill.


BYE WINNING! I dipped and I dipped and then I dipped some more and apparently you need a degree in physics or rocket science to get this done right because my balls turn to crap. Lumpy dripping balls of crap. My fingertips radiate not sunshine, but death. My Adonis DNA has let me down. I've watched the Bakerella Cake Pop video, repeatedly, and even another cake pop video, repeatedly. And yet, without fail, my dipping turns to dripping and my pops become massive balls of FAIL. My tale is not over yet, DEFEAT IS NOT AN OPTION! I shall continue to drink tea made of pulverized dinosaur fossils and practice. And practice some more. And if things look still bad, well then I can only hope a team of Vatican assassins take me out before I break my baby's heart with substandard birthday fare.

Olfaction

Another Tuesday, another chance to wow you with ten things! This week? Ten Favorite Smells and with that, we're off ...

1) Teen Spirit. COME ON. You had to see that coming a million miles away. A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido, YAH! I have no idea what Teen Spirit smells like ... locker rooms and desperation? Wait, I think that is the NFL. (Oh, and for the record, I realize that you will now have that song in your head for an eternity. You're welcome.)

2) Cookies baking. I suspect that this one is on everyone's list. Well, everyone that is you know, human.

3) L'Occitane Aromachologie Volumizing Shampoo and Conditioner. These are really flowery girly smelling (especially the shampoo, the conditioner is a but more muted) and I typically prefer more herbal smells for hair products. This stuff, however, wins me over. I remember using it at the Four Seasons hotel in Miami after my aunt died. I was sadder than hell, beat down and generally dog tired, but this shampoo/conditioner managed to perk me up a tad. When the smell wafted out as I scrubbed the shampoo in, I felt pampered, and in fact, when I use it now, the smell still is pampering to me.

4) A burning fireplace. But not mine. I can never really get my fireplace to send out that fireplace smell. Well except for the one time I forgot to open the flue and almost killed us all. But normally, when I am not burning my house down, I can't smell 'fireplace' in my own home. I can, however, crack my bedroom window as I am going to bed in the Fall and winter, and smell it from my neighbors.

5) Steaks on the grill. Because apparently I am, smellematically anyway, a pyromaniac.

6) Philosophy Amazing Grace. About a month or two ago I was at Sephora and there was a jug of Philosophy Amazing Grace hand lotion on the counter. I took a pump, rubbed it in, and was IMMEDIATELY transported back to Florida. There is something almost sunscreen-esque about the scent that makes me feel like home.

7) My newborn babies. When my kids were brand new, but you know, cleaned up, they had this delicious smell. Kind of like oatmeal? I dunno. I can't describe the smell, and suspect that there is some sort of biological pheromone thing going on to help a hormonally wrecked new mom glom onto her new baby. Whatever the reason, my babies both smelled Del.I.Cious when they were brand new.

8) Sunshine. I remember as a kid, coming inside and my mom giving me a hug and saying I smelled like sunshine. At the time, I thought it odd. Now that I am older, I know what she meant. A day in the sun has a scent. A yummy scent. And it is not body odor, you know, in case you were worried.

9) Coffee. I suspect this is a common one. But that is okay because coffee, coffee smells gooood. I love the smell of coffee so much, that after a night of stitching and bitching at our local Starbucks, I don;t mind walking out smelling like coffee. In fact, I like it!

10) Beer breath. I know, that is weird. The opposite of baking cookies and coffee. Really weird. I am not sure what whacked childhood trauma it taps into, but I find there to be something sexy about beer breath. Mind you, the owner of the beer breath can't be falling down drunk or it turns from sexy to repulsive in seconds. But in the right circumstances, I find beer breath hot.

Sockalooloo

In between all of my cowl knitting, I have been working on my old Knitting Olympics/Ravelympics sweater. I'm plodding along without much motivation, but it is a brainless sweater that cruises along. Now that I have the front, back, and hood done, you'd think I would crank out the sleeves and be done with it. You'd think wrong. Instead, I've been working on a pair of socks. I dug out some yarn I scored at last year's SnB Holiday PartySwampamajig and balled it (I'm a Baller, yo), but wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I batted around the idea of pedicure socks but couldn't commit. So I started the cuff and then carried it around in my knitting bag. Because you know, why not carry around random yarn?


It turns out my aimlessness was fortuitous as Linda is making a pair of socks and recommended the pattern she is using for my yarn and badabing badabang, I got me some actual socks on the needles.

Though this picture is some what crappy as one of my beloved little snowflakes took the camera battery out of the charger and put it ... somewhere unknown to me (JERK!), and I had to use our old camera, it doesn't totally hide an error I made in one of the socks. I was watching the snooze fest that was this year's Oscars and was moving along nicely until BAM, Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr. appeared and were entertaining. That split second of shock was enough to have me all hinky in my sock. But not so hinky that I ripped back. I did tink, but the tinking is noticeable and yet, I am okay with it. One might consider this a sign that my kids have started to beat me down. If it gets much worse, if I let errors roam free, please stage an intervention.

Not Half Bad

This week's Ten on Tuesday ... 10 Things to Like About March. Wow, that is kind of hard. My husband is a big fan of listing things he likes about months and even has a favorite month that DOES NOT CONTAIN HIS (OR MY) (OR THE KIDS') BIRTHDAY. I love him more than lobster, but I would swear this is weird. Apparently though, not so much? People seem to categorize this type of stuff and I had no idea. Anyway, when the husband talks about months he likes there are things like pitcher and catchers, spring training, bonfires and FOOTBALL! But me, I say, meh. I like seasons ... hello Winter, goodbye sweat ... but months in particular don't turn my crank. That being said, I am up for the challenge. Or at least I think I am. Let's see.

Ten (I hope) Things to Like About March

Number 1: My wedding anniversary! Not only did I marry my husband in March, we actually met for the first time in March, nineteen years ago. HOLY COW. Nineteen years. Hard to believe I met my husband when I was three years old [snort]. Anyway, this year is our seventh wedding anniversary and so I need to go find some copper and wool. Yah, wool. My husband is married to knitter so how easy is that for him? I mean, obviously, I could knit him something from wool, which could be easy and make me a nice and loving wife, but HA, No. We are talking about me here.

Number 2: Spring. My anniversary is on the Vernal Equinox and so I know for a fact that Spring starts in March. Truthfully, I'm not so into Spring. Lots of rain and mud and muck when I'd rather have the snow. I do, however, like flowers and I also like trying to grow veggies in my death beds plant beds, all of which require Spring like weather, so yippie Spring!

Number 3: One of my favorite (and embarrassing to admit to) television shows, Nikita, has a few weeks off before it's next new show. While I am irked that I have been left on a cliff for weeks, that means there is going to be a new Nikita in March ... yeah March! HELL. That was a total lie! I just looked up the link for Nikita and in doing so saw the preview for the next new show on APRIL 7. Hell and damn!

Number 4: March is a short word to write. So you know, if you are in school and have to write the date out, and like, spell it, then March is MUCH BETTER than, say, December. There are three whole extra letters in December.

Number 5: For most of March kids are back in school which means less rush hour traffic. I don't really deal with rush hour traffic anymore, but I remember getting annoyed when school was out and all of these extra people, extra people who were in my way doing stupid fun things while I was going to work, would be clogging up the works. So Woot! Woo! March! Go with your lighter traffic load!

Number 6: I like the cold. I like long sleeves. I like scarves. That being said, I also like skirts and so March is kind of a compromise for this conflicting set of likes. I can wear a long sleeve shirt with a scarf. And a skirt. My legs are blindingly white, but they are exposed to natural light which is kind of nice. There is a counter-argument to be made for no skirts and no shaving of the legs, but we will just ignore it for now.

Number 7: Each Day in March has some observance. A few of my favorites: 3/5 Multiple Personality Day; 3/7 National Crown Roast of Pork Day; 3/8 Be Nasty Day; 3/14 National Pi Day (Why? Because it is 3.14, the value of Pi); 3/28 Something on a Stick Day; and of course, 3/31 Bunsen Burner Day.

Number 8: March Madness. Now let me preface this by saying I don't like basketball. Not at all. And living in a state where Women's Basketball is King (or perhaps Queen) in the sport hierarchy, well, that sucks when you like College Football and even baseball. Howsoever, I LOVE MARCH MADNESS! I love filling out the brackets and watching the drama unfold. The brackets appeal to the orderly OCD part of my brain and the drama, well duh, who doesn't like drama. Last year I let a not-even-two-years-old Jillian fill out a bracket. All of her picks revolved around Sesame Street which is why she is probably the only person in the world who pick Murray State (Murray is a character on Sesame Street) to win any game at all. I mean come on, how great is it that?!?

Number 9: St. Patrick's Day. My husband is an Irishman named Patrick. So I must like this day, as per our marital contract. And well, his day is in March, so you go March!

Number 10: The last snow storm of the 'year' is typically in March. Not to beat a dead horse, but I like the cold and I like the snow. Usually March has the final-hurrah snow storm. It's never much, but it is there. In fact, of my last six wedding anniversaries, three have been snow-filled, so those seem like decent odds for March snow.

Yes, I know, I WAS stretching it. [ETA: I just read this list and realized I forgot March's Spring knitting patterns ... D'oh! That is better that traffic. And here, Easter candy! Geez, I forgot a couple of goodies!] Maybe there aren't a lot of awesome things to love about March, but. BUT. But there are some good things, I mean come on, Multiple Personality Day? I like it. Me too.

Repetitive

Yah, you people who doubted my ability to control the weather? FOOLS!


Two days ago I finished knitting another cowl and the last two days the weather has been in the upper fifties and low sixties (fahrenheit) and very un-cowl wearing like. I am omnipotent. Feel free to seek favor with cookies or large bills. Or Louis Vuitton wonderfulness. I am not picky. I am also not hardcore badass when photographed in an artsy manner. But I try.



In any event, I knit a cowl that is eerily similar in pattern to the one I knit a month or so earlier. It was going to be for a Craft-it-Forward Facebook thing, but then I realized that the Malabrigo worsted yarn is basically roving and I don't like it. Not one bit. I KNOW. Another secret I need to keep from the cool kids. Everyone loves Malabrigo. Hell, I love the colors of Malabrigo, but the worsted merino, well, I am not sure what is the appeal. It is roving in a skein. It is shite. Not surprisingly, it wears like shite as well (my fingertipless mitts have more pills than my local pharmacy). Nonetheless, even after I realized my yarn choice goof, I plugged on through and now have myself a cowl that does not shed every time I pull it over my face. I like it though it is a little smallish, or rather my head is a little biggish.


The pattern calls for two skeins and I used just one. As you can see here, that was what I had left for the seaming. Since this seemed ... odd, I measured the cowl before I seamed it up and it was in line with the pattern specs. I'm at a loss. When I finished seaming, I had maybe a foot of roving yarn left over. From the first skein. Which ... yeah? I dunno. It is not even really a happy thing as I am not in love with this stuff and am chomping at the bit to knit something else with the remaining skein. Meh.

The pattern itself was super easy to follow and overall, even with my poor yarn choice, I am pleased with the finished product. So that, not-so-meh.


Yarn: Malabrigo, Worsted, Merino Wool, #37 - Lettuce - 1 skein.
Needles: Addo Circ, size 5.0 mm (US 8)
Pattern: Tuesday Night Cowl
Time: A month.
Care: Hand wash cold and dry flat in shade or dry clean.

Still in Rotation

Quite some time ago, I knit Jillian a sweater. And, because, miraculously, I am not the worst parent in the world, the child has managed to grow. And grow. And so the sweater I slaved over no longer fits. Now, I suspect you think I am going to now tell you how I knit her another sweater, which, um, whoops! Not so much. Just because I am not The Worst Parent, I am also not The Best and so the kid has absolutely no handknits. Not a one. With this winter being cold, she could have used one so, negative points for me. Anyway, I did knit that one baby sweater, and guess what, I got me a baby who is wearing it.



Jillian was much younger when she wore this sweater and so she didn't beat it up too much. Juliet The Destroyer seems to grow at a slower rate, and is also smaller than Jillian was, so the sweater is getting a lot of wear. Which is good. And the sweater is actually holding up. Which is also good.

Oscar The Grouch

Today's Ten on Tuesday topic is Oscar flicks. Unfortunately my husband has never won an Oscar so I don't have any pictures of my, now deceased, cat with an Oscar. I do, however, have an old picture of Ernest with one of my husband's Emmys so, that is what I am using. Pictures are nice with blog posts. And both are awards for some sort of achievement related to the media, so let's pretend this makes sense and move on. Ten on Tuesday. Movies you like. Specifically your top ten favorite Oscar winning films. Unfortunately The Academy and me, we do not agree, because my favorite movies? Not Oscar winners. Pulp Fiction? Nope! The Hunt for Red October? Nada. Dangerous Liaisons? Negative Red Dog Leader. Steel Magnolias, Return of the Jedi, Taken? No, ni, non! I do realize that part of the problem is that I am not a huge movie buff. I like movies just fine, but I'm not the type of person that enjoys watching the same movie over and over. A book, if I like it, I will re-read immediately. But a movie, not so much. That being said, I do enjoy watching the Oscars, while eating cheese fondue and betting on who is going to win. So, in an effort to comply with the topic at hand, I went through some past winners and decided which, of the winners, were my favorites (and having typed this, I realize that this was probably what most people are doing because really, how many people's favorite movies won Oscars? I am thinking, not many). And then I came up with a list of, well a list anyway. So here we go ...

Not Quite 10 Oscar Winning Movies That Didn't Stink
in my humble opinion

1. Slumdog Millionaire: Okay, this one could actually be elevated to movies I like. Not only did it not stink, it was quite enjoyable. Well all but that bit where the kid was swimming in refuse. Swimming in shit? Not enjoyable.
2. The Departed: This was also really good. Also, as a bonus Leonardo DiCaprio actually looked manly (unlike in say .. Titanic, which eh, blech and booo).
3. Gladiator: I don't care for Russell Crowe, but he looked kinda hot, so that helps this emerge from the pack. And, despite the fact that I do not like this movie, I cry whenever I see the end. Which, is actually quite often as it is always on t.v. and my husband always stops to watch it. Anyway, since it can make me cry, it gets a nod from me.
4. Shakespeare In Love: This movie didn't suck. I saw it in the theater and didn't want to demand my money back. I haven't watched it again, mind you, but I remember thinking it was okay. Well, but for Gwyneth Paltrow. Ms. Goop may be pretty, but her personality seems so annoying and it leaches into her movies.
5. Silence of the Lambs: This movie scares me. Still. I've seen it, or bits and pieces of it, a million times and yet, I am always scared. I chalk that up as a sign that the movie doesn't stink. Also, there are oodles and oodles of great lines ... PUT THE LOTION IN THE BASKET. Enough said.
6. Amadeus: My husband loves this movie. Me, I like the crazy laugh they gave Mozart. It makes me laugh. A lot. The rest of the movie? I couldn't tell you a single thing about it. But the laugh? Total winner.
7. Patton: I know. This is an oddball choice. I watched it in high school in my history class and other than the fact that it was seemed like the longest movie ever, I really enjoyed it. This is odd since I have no love, or memory, for history. But there yah go. If it pleased my sixteen year old self, it must not stink.

Outted

Hi, my name is Jenna, and I have a secret. A deep dark secret. A secret that all the cool kids are gonna laugh over. A secret that will make 'em snigger and point.


I know it is rather pedestrian, but I like using a cable needle. I prefer it. Maybe it is gauche. Maybe it is old-fashioned. Maybe it slows down the knitting process. But there ain't no maybe about the fact that cable needles are just so much easier than the other options. So there you have it. I use cable needles because I like them. Commence the mockery!

Bed Side Table

When life gives you two kids and yet another snow day, well, if you're me, you gather The Little Mermaid, an exersaucer, and some goldfish crackers and then you hide yourself in the office with coffee. Lots of coffee. Then you dig through your e-mail and see that the Ten on Tuesday topic is 10 Things On Your Bedside Table and figure, I've got two hundred things on my bedside table so this is no problemo! I did give thought to cleaning off my bedside table before photographing it. Heck, I even thought about giving the dust a swipe, but then I decided authenticity would be more appreciated. Okay, that is totally not true. Though I appreciate authenticity when people share slivers of their lives, the reality is that I am vain enough to want to clean off my bedside table before sharing it with the internets. Unfortunately my kids care not about my vanity but instead about MORE PRETZELS WOMAN. So the pictures were taken slapdash and you get a glimpse of the real mess that greets me every morning, dust and all.

Without further adieu ...


1) My lamp. Something about a bedside lamp screams ADULT. Or this could just be because I didn't have a bedside lamp until, oh, about two years ago. I love this lamp and when my table isn't loaded down with stuff, it is like a little happy acrylic beacon that makes me smile. That being said, this lamp is a smidge obsolete now because my alarm clock (my husband's cast-off because he would send it flying whenever he hit snooze) has a built in night light. Nonetheless, I like the lamp and my husband has a matching one on his side, so it's staying. Note that the shade is once again straight. I noticed it was a bit wonky after I took the pictures and fixed that immediately. OCD? Me? No, why do you ask?

2) Two baby monitors. Two kids, two monitors, two reasons why I don't get eight straight hours of sleep.

3) Hand sanitizers. There are three different types of alcohol based hand sanitizers on my nightstand. It's not because I am some freaktastic germaphobe (I like to lick toilets as much as the next gal), but because of the kids. Inevitably someone is sick and since I am beckoned for binky retrieval or blanket fluffing (no, I am not kidding, it is ridiculous) at least once in the night, chances are I am encountering a snot factory or am one myself. The hand sanitizer is one of the ways I try to keep the snot factory to a factory of one, either by sanitizing myself before I attended to my charges or sanitizing myself afterwards.

4) Hand Lotions. All that alcohol hand sanitizer? It dries my shit out. So I have lots of lotions. These are usually lotions that are not my favorite smell good stuff, but more utilitarian. Currently I am a fan of a Gold Bond tube. It is made for feet, but I noticed that when I slap it on the feet at bedtime, my feet AND my hands look better in the morning. Win-win.

5) Stack o' books. These drive my husband INSANE. They are a leaning tower of trashy romance novels that I love and when I want to unwind before bed, these are my go to reads. Each has been read, at least, a dozen times, and each one I still thoroughly enjoy.

6) Borrowed books. There are two borrowed books. First, The Hunger Games, which I checked out from the library and HOLY GOODNESS! I've had it for two weeks and read it three times. It is fluff but oh-so-delightfully-good. Good enough that I am going to be getting my own copy once the library gets its back. The other is the new Susan Elizabeth Phillips book, Call Me Irresistible. It isn't as laugh-out-loud funny as some of her old ones but it was good enough that I started it at 10:00pmish and ended up going to bed at 2:00amish because I read it straight through.

7) Synthroid. You are suppose to take thyroid medicine in the morning and on a very empty stomach and that means nothing for an hour after you take it. So no coffee for an hour each morning after you take it. Ha! And, uh, not gonna happen. I leave the stuff on my bedside table and take it when someone wakes me up at some unholy hour, or, I take it the second I wake up. This lets me mainline coffee all the sooner. Also, Snythroid makes a good rattle when you have to bring a baby to bed and want to doze a little while longer. Unless you have a destroyer baby who can open child-proof medicine bottles. If that is the case then you might find yourself half-asleep, in a rain shower of itty bitty synthroid pills and wondering what the heck is going on. FYI, this is like a shot of pure adrenaline to the heart and really wakes you up quick.

8) Water bottle. Needed for the synthroid as you take it with "a full glass of water" but not "a full glass of coffee."

9) Stain stick. My laundry basket is just around the corner in the closet so this is the most convenient place to leave the stain stick and the best hope for me to remember to use it. Which I rarely do. Though I really should. Me = slob ∴ stain stick necessary.

10) Note pad & pen. Every night when I crawl into bed, I think of a dozen things I need to do the next day. And, every morning when I wake up, well, I can't remember them. So the pads and pens are suppose to be easily accessible so I can write stuff down. Typically the pen won't work or I am under the covers and so they never get used. But I leave them there. Hope springs eternal.

Kosher?

You know how they say bad luck comes in threes? Yah know? Right? Well, first I bought some yarn that looks really pretty when it is in a skein.


But looks like dogshit when knitted up. I haven't knitted it up, but I did a Ravelry search and saw some of the projects and well, wow. Just wow.

Second, I knit a hat. An Unoriginal Hat which fits so queerly, that I look like a yard gnome. In fact, I honestly cannot look at either the hat or this picture and not laugh out loud.


Third, I bought some yarn. Some newly released yarn according to the LYS owner. I asked if anyone complained of knots or breaks and she said oh no. Not that. In fact the only problem she had heard of, and it was on the internet, not from one of her customers, was that the tail of the yarn is sometimes woven into the skein, hard to get out, and can tangle.


Are you kidding me? This thing ate up my swift like a fat kid eats cake. RIDICULOUS.

So that is three right? Right? Let it be known that I am cordially requesting that we all agree that this is my three so that my knitting can return to normal.

Holy Cowl

So in, literally, two days I whipped up a cow that I had seen at Stitches East. I left that typo there because it amused me. I knit a cow. Wahahaha. Okay, not really funny anymore. Moving on. Or not. I did say Stitches East which means last October, which means a finished object from last year is being blogged this year. I should be embarrassed but I still have a few finished objects from TWO years ago that I have not blogged so let us ignore that and really move on. I knit up a cowl. It was quick and I love it. Almost.


I love that it was a super duper quick knit. I love that the color is neutral but doesn't get washed out in my amazing complexion despite my fabulous lighting in that there photo above. I love that it covers the quadruple chins (that I acquired AFTER giving birth to Juliet, WRONG). And really, I could stop there. Hides multiple chins? WIN.



It also can double as a stole on a toddler and even a pre-schooler (which says VERY BAD THINGS about the aforementioned quadruple chins). And, for the record, the pre-schooler there, that is her "model pose" which I guess means she has a head ache from being overworked?

I also really liked the pattern. It was easy to follow and well written. I did have a few cables that gaped at the ends. I am not sure what I did to cause this. But I went back and tightened them up with extra yarn when I weaved in my ends because I am anal and crazy and was worried that The Fashion Police would beat me with last year's it bag should it see those gaping holy bits. Twas no big deal.


The only thing I am not totally in love with? The yarn. I double stranded some baby alpaca and some woolly cashmere, which is beyond heavenly soft but ... but it sheds. A lot. I have lint rolled the thing. Repeatedly. I have given it a superduper bath which sadly sucked out some of the body but not enough of the superfluous fluff so when I wear it I tend to sneeze. Or cry. Depending on whether the fluff goes up my nose or in my eyes. And since I have to pull it over my face to get it on, that fluff is going somewhere I don't want it to go. I am kind of hoping that it will defluff itself eventually. But I realize that this likely be a pipe dream. All that being said, even with the fluff, I like this cowl lots and have been wearing it. Tearfully.


Yarn: Frontier Fiber Mill, 100% Suri Alpaca, Regalia, 2 skeins with Filatura Di Crosa, Nobile, Color 15, Lot 0010, 3 skeins
Needles: Addi Circs, size 6 mm (US 10)
Pattern: Burberry Inspired Cowl
Time: 2 days
Care: Hand wash in cold. Dry flat.

Happy New Year!

So sometimes when New Year's Day rolls around, I have an overwhelming urge to purge my house of all things Christmas related. This year the urge to purge struck which is why, at nine a.m., with a minor alcohol-induced headache, Jillian and I were removing the ornaments from Tom Cruise. It would have been even earlier but I also had an urge to wax my brows and 'stache (TMI? Perhaps). A great activity to do when you were one with the blender and Kahlua mere hours before. Anyhow, back to the urge to purge Christmas gobbledygook, and taking the decorations down and off of Tom Cruise Tree ... Now I know Jillian is two and a half and not the most delicate flower, but even accounting for her toddler toughness, I have to say, I think Tom was MIGHTY PISSED to be loosing his ornamentation.



Holy friggen needles Batman - and this is only one pile! Tom lost, maybe, fifty needles before today. And those fifty needles, they started dropping AFTER Christmas. Tom had some longevity. He also had a drinking problem as he was consuming ninety-six ounces of water EVERY DAY for TWO AND A HALF weeks. SERIOUSLY? I assume all of that water was what kept him beneedled? In any event, he dropped a few as he aged. Up 'til today when he full on revolted and went from full and beautiful to Charlie Brownesque.

Tom's revenge on his early departure did not end with his massive shed, oh no, it ended on when he sent me careening down my yard on my ass in a bra-less, wife beater, legging and flip-flop wearing state. Yes. That's right. We were taking Tom out to the side of the garage and I thought it would be no big thing so I didn't actually dress accordingly (accordingly to being seen by other humans, like say my neighbors, as I slid past them on my ass). I had on no makeup, in fact, my face probably had that red puffy look of the freshly waxed, my hair was held up with two different hair things, I did not have on a bra, but I did have on a tight white wife beater tank top. With leggings. And flip flops. And after I dropped Tom Cruise on his balding butt, he pushed me, and I slipped on the snow onto my butt, which, in a sign that maybe I need to lay off the cookies acted like a SLED and launched me down the yard along the side of my driveway. Boobs were flopping and GODDAMMITS were flying. Happy New Year's indeed!

Mission Impossible

Continuing my sometimes tactless, yet amusing to me, tradition, I present Tom Cruise:



He is a beautiful full tree who actually looks quite tall ... until you get up close and personal and realize, not so tall after all.

The funny thing about Tree Tom Cruise is that we searched high and low for a ten to twelve foot tree to cut down ourselves. Only when we couldn't find one, did we go to a pre-cut place where they said Tom Cruise was ten feet tall. Ha! We were obviously desensitized by all of the short trees we had previously seen because at the time he seemed quite tall. When the husband and I got him in the stand without arguing, I realize that something was amiss. By the time we had him situated in the living room, I realized we had been had. Tom Cruise is a shorty!

This is Getting Old

Today I've spilled two large cups of coffee and a gigundo glass of ice tea. It makes me think the Universe is trying to tell me something ... I'm over hydrated??

Realist

This is the first year that Jillian is really getting the Santa thing. Actually that's not true. She doesn't really get it. Let's say she is somewhat aware that there is a guy named Santa and that the soccer ball she wants, well she needs to ask him to give it to her. It was along these lines that we had a discussion on how, exactly, she was going to get that soccer ball from Santa.

J1: Where does Santa live?
Me: In the North Pole.
J1: Is Santa gonna drive a car to our house? In my car?
Me: No. Santa rides on a sled.
J1: A sled???
Me: Yes. He has a special sled that is pulled by reindeer. Santa and the reindeer take the sled from house to house and land on people's roofs. Then Santa slides down the chimney and puts your presents under the Christmas tree so you can find them on Christmas morning.
J1: HAHAHAHAHA. No Mommy! That's silly! You're silly Mommy! HAHAHAHA!

Dropped

Way back in November of 2009, on November 9, to be exact I started a little knitting project. A drop stitch shawl/scarf. I had been trying to recreate a store bought scarf, saw something similar at Stitches East, and decided to go for it. It required the casting on of one hundred and fifty stitches, which I did. While I was in labor. After I cast on the oodles of stitches, I was able to knit a couple of rounds before bellying up to the epidural bar. Then there was some dropped, not on purpose, stitches and a yarn break and I packed up the project and moved onto the having baby project. Since then I have worked on the baby project full time and am happy to report she is alive and kicking and learning to earn her keep modeling my knitwear.


The knitting project, however, was less full-time and more on and off. That being said, I finally finished it. The fact that a scarf took me almost a year makes me nauseous. I mean really. Ten months? For realz? In my defense (and yes, I do realize I am defending myself against myself, but whatever), I did finish a pair of socks and start a sweater and learn to crochet (poorly) so it's not as if I worked on it constantly. But still. Ten months!

The pattern was written by a yarn shop in Rhode Island called Unwind. Basically you cast on one hundred and fifty stitches, or one hundred and eighty if you are in labor (thankfully one hundred and eighty is divisible by five so it worked out perfectly) and then you knit those one hundred plus stitches, through the back loop, in the round, until the thing is eighteen or so inches. If you, like me, have a lot of yarn, you might go nineteen inches. Then you do this bind off where you are binding off five stitches and then pulling the yarn through a stitch and then knitting and dropping stitches and if this sounds confusing to you, you're not the only one. I am good at blindly following instructions, which I did, and it worked. But it was also a bit scary. Especially since I started it while driving in the car to Cooperstown (a city where I had no knitterly support) for a mini-vacation. I mean honestly, I was in the car with all this time to realize that for all intents and purposes I had knit the body of a sweater (read: LOTS OF WORK) and was doing some hinky bind-off which might be wrong and render all of that knitting USELESS.

Nonetheless, I did the cast-off and it seemed okay. I figured in for a penny, in for a pound and so I started dropping oodles and oodles of stitches. Seventy-five percent of the knitting I did? Dropped. Now not only was this sucky because all of my hard work was for naught. But also, I used alpaca which is basically like one big wad of self adhesive and thus, hard to drop. Really hard. In the end I did manage to get it done without breaking any of the long floaty bits (or anything else for that matter).


So then it was happily ever after right? Uh no. My nerves got another run for my money when it became obvious that the cast-on was WAY tighter than the bind-off. Now I figure that a slight difference in tension is normal, but when you throw in baby labor as part of your cast-on, you will, apparently, get the wholly mother of all tightness. Which in practical speak meant I could have a trapezoidal shaped scarfy wrap or take drastic measures. Those drastic measures? Cut the bars/dropped stitch sections for the cast-on row. Almost a year done of knitting and then I am faced with the prospect of hacking away at it. Which, me being me, I did. I went through and cut off the bars for the entire cast-on row. Then I gave the thing the evil eye and dared it to unwind or unknit. I did do a slight weaving of ends and kind of rubbed the ends figuring this and alpaca would put me in good stead. So far? So good.

After the cut-o-rama, I then had to block the thing as it looked like a pile of pasta. I was a bit scared of submerging it in water since alpaca has been known to turn into a wet rag of nothingness. After all I had gone through I decided to forgo my normal dunk and pin and got out the iron and a spray bottle. It was time consuming but, for the most part, I got all those drops looking smooth.

For the rest of its life, I will remember starting this scarf while I was in labor and having the anesthesiologist rip it when he went to put in my epidural. It is my Juliet scarf. For that reason alone I don't hate it. If I had to do it all over again that sucker would NOT be nineteen inches wide. I intended to make it a wrap but it looks TOTALLY stupid as a wrap and instead I wear it as a very fluffy scarf. I also am thinking the dropped bits would be fewer as I hate the fact that I undid so much of the work. But when all is said and done, I do like it and have worn it several times (like to ♥Rhinebeck♥).


Yarn: Schoppel Wolle, Baby Alpaka Naturbelassen, Color 98808870, Lot 1119344, 3 skeins
Needles: Susan Bates Circs, size 5 mm (US 8)
Pattern: Drop Stitch Wrap and Scarf by Unwind
Time: 10 months?!?
Care: Machine washable, gentle (hardy har har). Dry flat. Low heat iron.